


The Slippery Dark

by Vulpesmellifera



Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: Creepy, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Apologizes, M/M, Post-Episode: S01E06 Rare Species, season 1 AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:48:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27163405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vulpesmellifera/pseuds/Vulpesmellifera
Summary: Suspicion and guilt war beneath his skin like adversarial ant colonies - writhing and biting. None of this is right, but who is Geralt to demand answers from Jaskier?The bard has changed. He chafes at his clothes as if beset by a rash, he stares into the distance with a down-turned mouth and sad eyes, and he won't tell Geralt about the monster they're facing other than "it'll be easy for you to kill it," and "you're the only one I would ask." Anytime Geralt tries to bring up his angry outburst on the mountain, Jaskier walks away without a word.And the dreams. Geralt's dreams are strange and frightening. When they settle in at a castle in ruins for protection from a coming storm, will what lurks in the shadows finally consume the Witcher? Or will the Witcher find what he should have wished for all along?
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 21
Kudos: 250
Collections: Sordid Saovine - The Witcher Halloween Event





	The Slippery Dark

**Author's Note:**

> I have not read the books, and I played part of one of the games. Therefore, my knowledge is limited, but I very much enjoy the show! This fic jumped up on me before I finished watching the season, so it does take a bit of a turn. That said, I do hope you'll enjoy it. I wrote it with Halloween in mind, and then discovered the Sordid Saovine event arranged by CarmillaCarmine. What fun!
> 
> Thank you so much for reading. I normally share a playlist with my fics, but for this one, I just listened to _The Horror and the Wild_ on repeat, and it was perfect.
> 
> Thank you so much to jae_blaze for the beta work. ilpsm!

> I wake and hear you calling
> 
> And up those cliffs I climb
> 
> And I find you with a thimble weeping
> 
> May I, I ask, may I?
> 
> And you gently gift it to me
> 
> Cos you've no clue how to sew
> 
> And I know the kindest thing
> 
> I pray to god it's the kindest thing
> 
> I know the kindest thing
> 
> Is to never leave you alone
> 
> \- The Amazing Devil, _The Rockrose and the Thistle_

Beneath strong perfumed notes of orange blossom and ambergris, Jaskier smells of seawater, sweat, and sun. Geralt can scent the bard long before he rounds the corner, and upon seeing Geralt, starts up his inane chatter like a pretty songbird who thinks the sun rises at every hour.

Except lately Jaskier doesn’t sing, and his mood is ruminative. Preoccupied. Sometimes, especially as night’s dark curtain drops, he’s itchy and twitchy. He scratches at his wrists and his neck, which stay red for most of the next day. He’s quiet, which at times Geralt is grateful for. But then he worries. The scent around Jaskier sharpens and sours at night. The bard is dreaming.

It’s been a week since they reunited. Jaskier found Geralt about to spend his coin on drink and a woman, and before Geralt could open his mouth to apologise for the things he said on the mountain, Jaskier asked him for his help. Begged him. Geralt couldn’t say no. Jaskier’s sad blue eyes drew him into a bright pool of guilt and regret so deep he thought he was drowning. He’d gasped to the present with Jaskier pulling him out the tavern door as if he hadn’t noticed Geralt’s slip in concentration. 

Geralt could detect something new and pronounced in Jaskier’s scent - the man was afraid.

Is afraid.

As they near the coast, the bard still hasn’t told Geralt what it is, only that he has to travel to the coast to meet a monster. When Geralt tries to demand or cajole for more information, Jaskier stops speaking. He stares off into the distance with those big eyes, and his mouth draws down at the corners. Not with an expression of fear or anger. He seems lost. Resigned.

Today, he breaks his silence while sitting on a rock ledge overlooking a green stretch of land. An assemblage of tiny huts sits in the distance. Beyond them, the bluffs overlook the sea. They’ve traveled a few days to get here, and each day that passes, Jaskier’s song of himself seems to fade into the distance, as if he were no longer the Jaskier Geralt once knew.

“Just say you’re done, that you...it's fine. I’ll go,” the bard says. “I’ll do this by myself.”

“It would help if you’d just tell me what it is,” Geralt says, and places his booted foot up on the ledge, leaning his forearms onto his knee. “What is it that we’re facing?”

Jaskier shakes his head, his brown fringe falling over his brow, his eyes unfocused, seeing something in the distance that Geralt can’t see. “I can’t speak about it. Just. When you see it, you might have to kill it. I may not be strong enough to do it myself.”

Geralt lays a hand on Jaskier’s arm. Jaskier startles, stares at it as if it might bite him. He shifts his stare to Geralt’s face. His eyes are shadowed by the lack of sleep and sweat gleams on his brow.

“Are you unwell?” Geralt asks. 

Jaskier pulls away from him. “Look. I appreciate you coming with me. I do. Especially since I know what you think of me -”

“Jaskier -”

“No. Stop. I’ve asked you along, and I’ll pay your fee. Just promise me. Promise me that when you see it. You’ll do what’s right. What you were made to do.”

Something metallic and sharp rattles across Geralt’s belly. _What you were made to do._

“Alright,” Geralt says. He straightens and grabs Roach’s reins. “Lead the way.”

Jaskier rocks himself to standing. The way he weaves down the side of the mountain would suggest he’s intoxicated, but Geralt hasn’t seen him touch a drop of spirits. Geralt considers offering his help, but Jaskier has been snappish. Distant. 

He wants to mend things, but for now, he’ll need to help Jaskier with his problem. And in the end, he’ll refuse the coin, and remind him that they were friends once, and could be again. 

It’s an unusual thing, this pang of pain at a loss of a friend. He’s lost many people, some whose presence in his life was as brief as a snowflake hitting his palm, and others who he’d thought he’d have for a lifetime.

Yennefer. Her dark presence sometimes lingers at the edges of his mind, but what the dragon said is true - he can never have her. A wish made in error. He’s resigned to a lifetime of loneliness. She is long-lived, like him, and maybe that’s what fed his wish - a lifelong companion. Someone who would lay the salves over his wounds and understand and accept him for who, or what, he is. 

He watches Jaskier toddling ahead, the bard’s hands now scratching the back of his neck as if his collar irritates him. A friend he’s known for some thirty years, and still, he looks so young to him. But in time, he’ll grey with age, and either have his life snuffed as quick as a candle, or he’ll fade into death, like the ghostly gloaming slipping into the black of night. They’d had a good run, though. Geralt never had a friend like him. 

Which is why he needs to apologize.

* * *

The village is strange. This is a long-forgotten settlement. Rough-hewn huts house multiple families with gardens growing between the buildings and no cropland to be seen. Drying animal skins stretch across walls. The scents of body odor, shit, lye, and fish saturate the air, and beneath them, the blood of butchered animals and the acrid stench of outhouses. The only animals he sees are horses and goats, and that’s when he realizes the fuel for their fires is manure and dried seaweed, cloaking the air with its unpleasant odors. 

It seems it’s without a tavern, without a holy place, and without any kind of general store. A child spots them and sounds the alarm, his thin voice raising into the air like the sharp cry of a bird. The villagers emerge from their huts and their fires, gather to stare at them with suspicion, and some with outright anger. They wear the skins of seals. 

Jaskier had told Geralt not to come to the village - he wanted to go around it. But Geralt can smell the clean, sweet aroma of an approaching storm in the breeze and feel the pressure drop in the air. The grey sky is streaked with clouds and the birds have gone quiet. With Jaskier looking so ill - and Geralt’s preference that Roach need not endure any more of the elements than needed - he wants a place to stay with a roof over their heads.

“The land here is too rocky to till,” Jaskier says, unexpectedly. “No proper place for a harbor. Just harsh winds and land only good enough for goats. They’re eating the horses, too.”

Geralt’s hand tightens on Roach’s reins, and he wonders if he should have listened to Jaskier and avoided the village. 

“No tavern?” he says, wondering how Jaskier came to know this place. 

“No, there ain’t a tavern,” a man calls to them. His hairline is escaping to the back of his head into a grey braid. His lined face and missing teeth speak of hardship. His stance, shoulders back and spine rigid, suggests he might have some authority here. Or he’d like to.

“Who’s the leader?” Geralt asks.

“We don’t need your coin if that’s what you aim to give us.”

Murmurations run through a gathering crowd. Geralt can hear snippets: “Are they one of them?” a child asks and is hushed. Other whispers are similar. _Them_ is said with thinly concealed fear and choked apprehension.

His eyes scan the crowd. The villagers stare, some with wide eyes and others with pinched faces. “Is there a place we can seek shelter? A storm is coming, and my friend is tired.”

Jaskier draws himself up and gives Geralt a glowering look. 

“Yeah,” the man says with a sneer. “The castle.”

A hush. Some of the villagers duck their chins. The breeze picks up again, painting the air with the fresh scents of impending weather and sea salt. 

“Is there something I should know about this castle?” Geralt asks.

“It’s where you’ll find shelter.” The man spits on the ground. It glistens against the bare, foot-trodden earth. 

Geralt scans the crowd. As he does, an older woman steps forward and points to Jaskier. “Eh, that one looks familiar. What’s your name, man?” Her face is round, and her eyes squint at the bard. 

“Oh, I just have that kind of face,” Jaskier says. “Everyone says so.” For a brief second, Geralt glimpses his old friend, the blackguard with the charming smile and the propensity for trouble. He’d never tell Jaskier, but he was charmed by that smile too often himself.

“What are you?” The old woman asks, now looking at Geralt. He can feel it more than see it as every spine in the village snaps to straight, eyes fixed on him, hands flexing around makeshift weapons. 

Geralt adjusts his grip on the horse’s reins. “If anything should trouble this village, I would be happy to rid you of it in exchange for shelter.”

The man in front of them grins. “Yeah, at that castle.” Whispers start up again like the rush of water over stone. “Haunted.” “It’ll eat ‘em, mebbe.” Eyes narrow at them as mouths flatten. 

Geralt nods. “Alright. We’ll stay at the castle.” It might be fun to find out what lurks there, and maybe it’ll bring old Jaskier around.

“Geralt,” Jaskier says to him in a low voice. “What do you think is at the castle?”

“I hear it’s haunted,” Geralt says as he leads Jaskier away from the village, glad to be leaving behind its myriad of stenches and its unfriendly denizens. “I’m interested to know by what.”

“Seriously?” Jaskier says. “I’m - we’re going - isn’t it enough that I’m potentially bringing you to a monster? Aren’t we fine to sleep under the stars the way we’ve been doing?”

“Only potentially?” They’re dancing so close the edge of their old banter. It aches in Geralt’s gut - the sticky desire to share this between them again. “Besides, Roach needs a night in while it storms.”

“Great. Glad we’re making decisions for the horse.” Jaskier pulls at his sleeves, fingers rubbing at his wrists. 

Geralt grins, his heart giving a slight leap. 

“I’m surprised they haven’t heard of you,” he says and wonders if Jaskier might tell him why he was familiar with this forsaken place. “Certainly your songs have travelled all across the continent.”

Jaskier sobers, the slight happiness on his face having slid away. “Not here,” he says. Geralt opens his mouth to speak, but Jaskier turns his face away, and the air between them seems brittle and cold. 

Like the promise of sun peeking over the clouds, only to have it hidden once more.

* * *

The other thing that’s been bothering Geralt is the recent content of his dreams. Whispers, water, slippery things that paw at him. Eldritch, sea glass eyes watching him from a midnight blue face, a thing with fangs and long, spindly fingers. He wakes in a sweat with a sharp gasp, sitting upright. 

The bard sleeps on, so Geralt can be thankful he’s not loud at least, but the dreams are so vivid that it’s hard to shake them off even hours after waking. Jaskier no longer prattles at him in the morning, so it’s easy to keep his taciturn demeanor without admitting to the nervy jangling wreaking havoc within his chest and belly, and the tingle of hairs on the back of his neck. It’s midday by the time he’s forgotten, and when evening slides in, the memories settle like an uncanny fog over the sea. Slow anticipation curdles in his gut of what horror he might face that night.

So when they come to the castle and the sun is setting, Geralt begins to think he might have made a mistake. It seems foreboding - desolate ruins on a cliff over a rocky shoreline. A coming storm. An ill friend. Like he’s asking for the monster of his dreams to emerge in a perfect storm of circumstance.

Until Jaskier begins his grousing. “I can’t believe this is where you want to stay.” 

Geralt can’t back out now. “Roach needs her beauty sleep,” he says.

It’s clearly the family seat of whatever lord once ruled the lands here. The title has probably been forgotten, along with the village and this un-arable land surrounding it. The fishing might be alright at sea, but the bluffs are unfriendly, and the shore rocky without a place for a harbor. It wouldn’t surprise Geralt if the history includes a village uprising, and no one thought to rescue the family or claim their lands and titles in the aftermath. 

The castle is rock and mortar. The wide, double-door has long rotted away under the strength of the elements, or perhaps it was burned away by the peasant uprising, with rusted hinges and chains at the edges. The western wall of the courtyard has fallen, scattering the ground with broken stones. The door leading inside - this one made of iron - hangs half off its hinges, bent away from the archway. Weeds such as thistle and wild rose spring forth in ragged clumps all across the ground. The crenellations on the lone tower remind Geralt of the villagers with their gap-toothed mouths. 

Roach is calm - well, as calm as she has been lately. The horse steps quietly on her heavy hooves, and nickers when he touches her. She seems to sense that something is off about Jaskier - she won’t let him stand near her. Jaskier hasn’t seemed to notice, which is strange because it would be the sort of thing he would comment on. Some long-suffering diatribe he would subject them all to on how Roach had no respect for him.

But here, she gives no indication of having noticed anything out of the ordinary, standing as usual beside her Witcher, and not far from his bard. Or, the person who used to be his bard.

Geralt watches Jaskier as he walks toward the iron door in his weary shuffle. The lute hangs from him - he still hasn’t played it - along with his satchel. Geralt can smell that Jaskier hasn’t washed his clothes lately. Neither of them smell very good when on their long journeys, but Jaskier was always more picky - more likely to seek out places to wash his clothes and himself. Geralt had often admired that pale body beneath the golden light of the sun, water droplets clinging to the hair on his chest and along his arms and legs. 

“Well, are we going inside?” Jaskier asks.

Geralt pulls his eyes away, realizing Jaskier has likely seen him ogling. “Yes,” he says. His eyes travel the lines of the castle ruins once more. No doubt ghosts linger inside. Nothing else jumps out at him, no signs of monsters. Yet a murky foreboding has risen in him, one that he can’t quite put his finger on. But he can’t get cold feet now, especially since he’s dragged them all this way. He leads Roach through the gap in the door and inside the castle.

Drafts nip at them as they enter. The chill inside the castle matches the derelict demeanor of the outside. Cobwebs gather in dusty, dim corners. The glow of the coming twilight can be seen in the gaps of the walls. Geralt guides them inwards, in search of a room with fewer breezes where they might get together a small fire - perhaps there’s wood by some miracle - and Geralt can confront Jaskier on everything: his apology, Jaskier’s potential illness, and this creature they’re going to see.

Roach’s hooves clop against the stone. Jaskier’s feet pad. Geralt’s footsteps can’t be heard. At times, the castle seems to shift and groan, and the wind howls above through upper levels. It smells of granite, dust, and saltwater. 

The first skeleton they pass is fresher than Geralt would like. An eerie grin on a white face, tendons still stretched from joint to joint. Jaskier’s eyes slide over it and away. No moue of distaste, no roll of the eyes, no outraged comment on the creepy castle decor.

Geralt restrains himself from asking why he isn’t more himself, but he’s almost afraid that by speaking to Jaskier in this gloom, the man will jump out of his skin. Jaskier seems more put off by Geralt than he is by the bones of the dead.

He won’t point out to the bard that the skeletons have been gnawed on by something larger than a rodent. 

They pass other skeletons from time to time. Jaskier sighs at one, as if to say _same old, same old._ It doesn’t actually take long to find the kitchen as they head down, staying away from the side of the castle that seems to have caved in on itself. The hearth bears a pile of dry driftwood beside it. They can shut the door and trap the heat. Geralt sets Roach up on one side with some oats, while Jaskier prepares a fire. 

When Geralt sits next to him, Jaskier startles away. He doesn’t sit too close to Geralt now, even when it’s cold. Geralt says nothing, just watches as the small flames flicker and curl around some tinder, until finally catching on the edges of a larger piece. In the distance, thunder rumbles, and rain pelts the stone.

* * *

Geralt is underwater. His white hair billows out in a cloud at the edges of his vision. Something watches him. He turns. A smooth-faced, dark-skinned creature stares, and reaches out with one long, distended finger. A nightmare creature of a brackish odor and ghostly, sapphire eyes set inside a face of black-blue onyx. Geralt waits to see if the creature is friend or foe - and that’s his mistake. The creature’s long fingers close about his neck and cut off his breath. As Geralt opens his mouth and brings his muscled arms up to fight back, a black stream of fluid jets out from the nightmare creature’s mouth and fills Geralt’s.

In a cold sweat Geralt bolts upright. His mouth is open as if he’s screaming - but no sound emerges. The air is saturated with the stench of blood and ichor - but the fire burns low in the hearth, Roach’s soft nickers can be heard across the room, and Jaskier is a lump inside his sleeping roll, a tuft of his walnut-brown hair sticking out at the top. 

Geralt lays down and stares at the ceiling. He won’t go to sleep for at least another hour, and the phantom sensation of a hand lies at his throat.

* * *

Geralt rises. Jaskier lies still in his sleeping roll. The sour smell around him is weaker than usual, and Geralt hopes this means his illness, whatever it is, is passing.

He scratches Roach’s soft and warm muzzle. She nuzzles him, and he takes her calm as a sign that there’s nothing here to fear. He’ll explore the castle. 

He passes over the rooms that smell too thickly of old death and walks up steps to a higher level. The fading echoes of ghosts waver before him, now here, now there. But nothing to suggest he and Jaskier are destined to be the meal of a monster. Perhaps nothing lives here now. Maybe the old scary thing that chewed on the bones of humans has moved on. Or passed away.

In a room above the kitchen, he finds a giant bathtub. His glee is unexpected: Jaskier will love this. Well, maybe old Jaskier would have. In the light of day, he’ll heat up water and make a bath for the both of them. Jaskier can have the honors of going first, followed by Geralt, and then their clothes. Perhaps it will help Jaskier to feel more like his old self. Maybe it will help strengthen them for whatever it is Jaskier thinks they may face.

It’s what little Geralt can offer, anyway, if Jaskier won’t hear his apology.

Threadbare tapestries that stink of mold line the walls, and Geralt decides to throw them out. The other side of the room has double doors that open, with a loud creak of their hinges, onto the balcony. His nerves still burn with the strange fear that his dream inspires, and to do some physical labor will help it to pass. He yanks the tapestries down while holding his breath. Mold spores and dust flurry in the air, moths dance out of the fabric and up toward the ceiling. He drags the first one out onto the balcony.

The storm has passed and the night is clear. Petrichor permeates the air with its cloying, earthy smell. The balcony is slick with rainwater, but Geralt steps with care to the edge. 

It overlooks the sea. The stars dot the sky like diamonds embedded in blue velvet and the ocean shimmers with the moon’s light. Geralt sucks in the fresh air to soothe his rattled nerves and the brew of feelings sitting deep in his gut. 

A movement among the rocks in the wrack line captures his attention. A long black figure stretches up from a crouch. Smooth-headed and skin as dark as the wet rocks, it jumps from atop a boulder and slides across the waves as easily as a wet-skinned dolphin.

Geralt drops the tapestry. He leans over the railing as he peers closer. The shadowy figure cuts through the waves, moving across the water faster than any land born creature could. 

The figure turns its face toward the castle, and Geralt’s stomach drops as he sees sapphire-blue eyes fix on his yellow-amber ones. 

It’s his nightmare. The creature with the ink-black spew. 

He takes a step back and trips over the tapestry lying on the ground. It jars his spine as he lands on his arse. A ghost wails in the distance, and his heart jumps into his throat in an uncharacteristic lurch of fear. Stunned, he takes a moment to scramble back to his feet and look again.

Nothing appears above the rhythmic furling and cresting of the surf. It’s as if he imagined the entire thing. 

Geralt glances around and below the balcony directly where the bluff drops straight down to the rocks below. Nothing moves. 

The sky to the east is lightening to a muted shade of periwinkle. Soon enough, Jaskier will awaken, and they can continue their journey, and get away from this cursed place.

* * *

Geralt had crawled back into his sleeping roll and lain awake staring at the ceiling. It’s not until the suggestion of dawn light enters through the crack beneath the door that he lets his eyes close. When he wakes, Jaskier is up, crouched by the hearth, and stoking the fire. At his feet are fish wrapped in seaweed.

“You went fishing?” Geralt asks.

“Good morning, Geralt,” Jaskier says in his sing-song, half-annoyed way.

“Morning,” Geralt grumbles. He sits up and runs a hand through his hair, a small knot snagging on one of his fingers. He hums and begins untangling it, untying his hair and shaking it out. 

“Can you not do that?” Jaskier snaps.

“Excuse me?” Geralt says as he stills.

“It’s just - very distracting.” Jaskier stands. “I caught the fish, why don’t you cook ‘em?”

As he walks past Geralt catches a whiff of arousal. Sex. His nostrils flare and he watches the bard closely. Jaskier paces for a moment. He glances at Geralt, his cheeks flush, and he grabs his satchel. “I’m going for a swim.”

“A swim?” The cliffside is treacherous. “How’d you even get the fish?”

“There’s a pathway outside the door down the hall. What do you care anyway?” Jaskier starts to leave.

“Do you want me to come with you?” Geralt calls before he gets too far.

Jaskier whirls around. “It may surprise you, Geralt, but I managed the first twenty years of my life without you, and I’ve spent this last year without, and I’ve done just fine.”

Geralt looks away, down at his hands, which hang between his legs as his arms press to his thighs. Jaskier’s footsteps fade down the hall. 

It’s not even hot out, and Jaskier has gone for a swim. This is not the bard Geralt knows. 

And if Geralt digs just a little deeper inside of himself, he can find the hurt. He misses the inane chattering, the insatiable appetite for women, and for good times. He misses the way Jaskier banters, the way he flirted with anyone who so much as smiled at him. Or didn’t smile at him. Below that, Geralt can find other, older feelings. Ones he locked up for the benefit of their friendship. It’s never good for a long-lived Witcher to nurse an attraction to a short-lived human, and it can get sad and ugly. It’s not worth it. 

He thinks again of Yennefer. Strikingly beautiful, as hard as flint, as mighty as the weathered boulders along the ocean coast. And sad. Full of longing. He’d wanted her - a companion who could understand his nature, his work, and live a long life with him. Instead, he’s here, shivering in some ruined castle haunted by ghosts, despised by his one and only friend. A friend for which his feelings have not always been platonic. 

Life had certainly made a joke of him. 

It was not as if Jaskier had ever lain with a man during their travels. Geralt’s times with men were few and far between, yet Jaskier wormed his way into his head, and then eventually into his heart and his gut, and their parting had been as difficult as an organ extraction. He was too busy feeling sorry for himself when he’d dealt the damage.

Jaskier, as pretty as a songbird and just as chatty. Charming, remarkable, and much stronger than he would ever let anyone know. Handsome. Amusing. With soft, gentle fingers and a hook of a smile that Geralt could rarely deny.

Geralt had shoved the feelings down, but as time passed, he had to admit it was no longer working. He was flooded with relief when the bard came upon him in the tavern, and still, he’s been rebuffed and rejected. It was perhaps all he deserved.

Yet Jaskier had been aroused just now. And still, he’d left Geralt alone in the room, choosing to douse himself with cold seawater. 

He finishes untangling his hair just as he finishes untangling his thoughts. Jaskier is in a strange state of mind, and even if he’s asked Geralt to not swim with him, he will look in on him to make sure the bard is safe.

* * *

The day is bright and the ocean scintillates like a swathe of blue gemstones. Among the moon-white crests of the waves, Geralt sees the pale body of Jaskier slide along like an otter. His clothes lay in a heap on the beach alongside his satchel and his lute. Geralt drops to a crouch by a large boulder and watches. Jaskier swims like he’s melded with the water, a creature of sea and foam. With Geralt’s sharp eyesight, he can see the suggestion of chestnut hair covering the bard’s body, and with his imagination, he recalls the dewy glistening of droplets caught in the hairs - hairs he wants to run his fingers through. Jaskier isn’t muscular, but he’s...yielding in a way that Geralt likes. He can picture Jaskier pressed to him, Jaskier spread beneath him -

But no. These are not the thoughts to harbor for someone he’s mistreated, and who now shrinks from him as if he’s got talons for hands. It’s time to put these feelings away. Geralt can’t have Yennefer, and apparently, he’s not meant to have Jaskier either. The consolation, perhaps, is that he might have Jaskier as his friend again, if he can win him over.

He’ll start by cooking that fish.

* * *

Geralt waits for a signal from Jaskier, who has paced the room several times since eating the breakfast of fish. He’s left to explore the halls, and come back. He sat and stared at the tiny fire in the hearth, scratching at his wrists and rubbing his neck, rolling his head about, and shrugging. In that time, Geralt found an attached courtyard with a bit of grass and weeds, and released Roach to graze. 

Now he waits for Jaskier to speak. When one of Jaskier’s scratching sessions draws blood, Geralt reaches over to stop him.

“Are you ill?” Geralt asks. The bard’s skin is sweaty and flushed. 

“Don’t touch me!” Jaskier snarls.

Geralt unhands him, but a shiver flashes up his spine. “You haven’t been yourself.”

“Yes, and you know me so well, do you, Geralt?” Jaskier shudders. 

“Will you let me tend to your wound?” Geralt says in a low voice. Earnest.

Jaskier glances at him, his blue eyes wide. This is the first time he’s looked at Geralt since breakfast. His eyes shift to the fire again as he nods.

Geralt gets out his kit and splashes a bit of water over Jaskier’s wrist from his waterskin. As he pushes up the sleeve, he finds more angry, red streaks abrading the flesh. “Why are you doing this to yourself?” he asks quietly.

“It itches,” Jaskier says, his voice swinging somewhere between angry man and petulant child. 

Geralt applies a salve on the irritated lacerations. Jaskier’s skin is hot and soft. The only calluses on his hands are from the strumming of a lute. When he’s finished, Geralt holds Jaskier’s hands in his. It’s an intimacy they’ve never shared despite all their nights together. 

“I wish you’d tell me what was going on,” Geralt says.

Jaskier’s eyes glimmer. He blinks and looks away, pulling his hands from Geralt’s. “When we meet the monster, you’ll understand.”

“This monster has some kind of hold on you?” It wouldn’t be the first time Jaskier’s been in trouble and needed Geralt’s help. But Geralt hasn’t been able to figure out how the monster came into Jaskier’s troubles. “Did it make you sick?”

Jaskier won’t look at him, and has fallen silent again.

Anger rises in Geralt, like a fanged thing with bruised knuckles ready for another scrimmage. “I don’t understand how I’m to help you if you won’t tell me,” he growls.

Jaskier’s head turns to face him, and maybe it’s a trick of the light, but Geralt swears he sees a fierce, reddish glow in Jaskier’s eyes. 

“I need air,” Jaskier says. He wrenches away from Geralt, stands and goes to leave.

“I saw a bathtub up the stairs,” Geralt says. Jaskier pauses. “I cleaned it earlier. I could bring heated water to it, and we could have a proper washing.”

Jaskier shivers. “I’m alright.” He walks out the door.

Geralt adds another small log to the fire. 

* * *

Jaskier makes no move to leave that day, and Geralt following his lead, says nothing. He brings Roach inside, makes sure she’s had water, and sets her up in the corner for the night. They go to bed in front of the hearth. Geralt hears Jaskier fidget in his sleeping skin. He lets himself drift off to the sounds of irregular tosses and turns of the bard.

He wakes. The distant moaning of ghosts isn’t what woke him - the undead denizens of the castle have proved themselves harmless. 

Instead, it's the stillness in the room. Roach is breathing, her hay-sweet scent obvious to his nose. Jaskier is too quiet. Geralt lifts his head to see his travelmate’s sleeping skin. It’s empty.

Geralt gets up. Jaskier’s scent is stale. The witcher’s hand flexes as he listens. Nothing outside the door. He opens it and walks into the hall. 

Moonlight spears the darkness through cracks in the walls. The shadows of the corners seem to press in on him as he follows the scent trail of his bard. Seawater, sweat, and sun. Sharp, and sour. Tinged with arousal.

Geralt follows the trail to the room he’d uncovered the day before - the one with the bath. Light flickers beneath the bottom of the door. A fire?

He places a hand on the cold, iron lever. He tilts his head to the door and listens. Was that the susurrus of water? The crackle of flame?

He pushes down and moves quietly into the room.

Jaskier lies on the ground. Geralt’s heart leaps to his throat as he crouches to the floor to see his friend up close. 

Except...it’s not Jaskier. 

It’s his skin.

Geralt reaches out with one hand to touch. Jaskier’s clothes envelope his limp form, crumpled and loose. It’s as if the body that was once inside them has deflated, has become boneless and without organs. As Geralt explores it, his heart, which has been trained to stay rhythmic and sedate in times of trouble, begins to race. He pulls the pile closer to him, to see the truly awful thing: Jaskier’s sightless face, without those beautiful cornflower blue eyes, and his mouth, gaping open toward the ceiling. 

Geralt’s stomach turns as he strokes one hand over the body - what’s left of it - of someone who had been his friend. His only real friend. A man who made Geralt laugh, made Geralt shake his head with a weary resignation, and a man who he had come to love in multiple ways. 

And he had never told him that.

He grips the empty corpse to his chest, like pulling together laundry and snakeskin. His teeth clench and his eyes sting. The smell of orange blossom and ambergris is faint. But there is no room for grief just yet - danger still likely lurks near. 

He surveys the room. The fire burns low in the hearth. A pot lays next to it. Geralt doesn’t remember seeing it earlier. He lays his friend’s body back on the stone floor and stands. Looks at the giant tub. 

It’s filled to the brim with water, dark like the shadows, but strips of the surface shine in the low light of the room. Ripples.

It moves.

A face above the water with blue-black skin. The eyes open. The irises are like glazed marbles and as blue as the sky on a clear day. The creature looks at Geralt without expression.

Geralt takes a step forward.

The thing retreats, submerging its neck and chin in the water. Geralt can smell fear in the air.

And more: seawater, sweat, and sun. The notes of orange blossom and ambergris.

“Jaskier?” he asks.

The thing watches him. Bald. Smooth-skinned and hairless. It’s the very same creature he’d seen in the ocean the other night. It’s the creature from his nightmares. 

Images fly though his mind: Jaskier’s moon-pale body sliding through the waves, Jaskier scratching at his wrists and his neck, Jaskier’s fear and his tired resignation. 

His pleas for Geralt to kill the monster when they meet it, if it was necessary.

The creature looking at him now is both afraid and sad. 

_Do what you were made to do._

Geralt swallows, and makes a decision. He unbuckles his belt and lays down his weapons. He unbuttons his pants. Then he pulls off his shirt and his pants and everything else until he’s standing as naked as the day he was born. The thing - _Jaskier_ \- watches him with wide eyes.

He walks up the steps and lifts one leg after another into the bath. He settles into the warm water. Jaskier presses against the opposite side.

“I won’t hurt you,” Geralt says. “I won’t kill you.” Meanwhile, his mind rushes with possibilities: voldanoi? Rusalka? This creature is unlike anything he’s seen. A curse? Why hadn’t he known it sooner?

Geralt reaches out with one hand. Jaskier lifts his head from the water and Geralt can see his bare shoulders, the color of dark sodalite. 

Jaskier holds himself just out of Geralt’s reach. His eyes seem desperate though, and Geralt can be patient. When Jaskier trembles and makes a move closer, halting, Geralt slides over and pulls Jaskier into an embrace. Jaskier’s body melts against him, soft and yielding, just as Geralt imagined. Geralt slips one hand over Jaskier’s face, gently strokes along his cheekbones and nose, over the brow, and down to the jawline. It’s Jaskier’s facial structure, the rounded cheeks, and the gentle curve of his chin, the proud brow. 

Geralt tips Jaskier’s face to his. It’s the bard’s eyes, blue and wonderful.

“This is what’s been scaring you?” Geralt whispers.

Jaskier says nothing. He lifts one hand. His fingers are longer, with slight webbing from middle knuckle to middle knuckle. Geralt interlaces their fingers. The smell of arousal thickens in the air, and beneath that, the unwelcome tang of fear. Geralt’s eyes stay locked on Jaskier’s as he brings those fingertips to his mouth one at a time, kissing each one. Jaskier’s mouth falls open as he watches. The inside is black.

Geralt brings Jaskier’s hand to his chest so the bard can feel the beating of his heart. “When I saw your skin there on the floor…” Geralt says. “I thought you had - I thought you were dead.” All the things unsaid hammer now at his rib cage. The words sit on his tongue, caged by his teeth. In Jaskier’s blown pupils, he can see desire. “Is it alright if I kiss you?”

Jaskier’s mouth closes, and with a slow nod of his head, gives permission. Geralt pulls him closer and presses their mouths together. It’s warm. Moist. Geralt’s pulse lifts with a quiet joy. 

Jaskier whimpers in his mouth, clutches him close. When they part, Geralt says, “This is what you feared? This form that you take?” He brushes his palm over Jaskier’s cheek. “I don’t see a monster here.”

Jaskier dives in for another kiss, and Geralt lets him have it. They press their bodies together. Geralt can feel Jaskier’s erection press to his belly. He glides his hands over Jaskier’s back and to his arse, pulling him into Geralt’s lap. The water sloshes gently around them as Jaskier straddles his thighs and kisses Geralt hungrily. The fear in the air dissipates. The arousal thickens, smelling like caramel and blood.

Without oils and in water, their lovemaking is rough, but Geralt likes the edge of ‘‘too much.” Jaskier scrapes his fingers over Geralt’s back as a litany of choked cries fall from his lips, and they rub against one another, hips thrusting until Geralt grips Jaskier’s cock in hand. Jaskier whines as Geralt tugs, and Geralt leans back to watch the ecstasy rise on Jaskier’s face. He finds when he grips Jaskier hard, Jaskier shudders with pleasure. It’s not long before Jaskier stills, moans, and Geralt can feel Jaskier’s cock pulse in his hand, spilling into the water. Geralt releases Jaskier, but keeps his arm around the bard’s waist as he grabs his own erection and pulls. 

“Geralt,” Jaskier says into his ear. It’s his voice, that sweet, soft warble of his bard. Geralt’s orgasm hits him like the wallop of a rogue wave - he’s overcome and tumbles over with ripples of pleasure. He meets Jaskier for more kisses as a haze washes over him. They sag against one another, in an embrace, panting.

As the water cools, they do it all over again, the mutual release like a benediction and a covenant between friends. Between lovers. When they finally crawl from the chill of the water and closer to the fire, Geralt can see that more of Jaskier has changed. Parts of his body have elongated. Webbing connects his toes. But Geralt doesn’t care as relief sings in his veins and a soft ember of love glows in his chest. He holds Jaskier close and strokes his pebble-dark skin until they fall asleep.

* * *

When he wakes in the morning, he’s covered by furs and Jaskier is awake. He looks himself again - human, with his unfettered doublet and blue trousers. Jaskier lies next to Geralt, his eyes uncertain and searching Geralt’s face. 

Geralt smiles.

The bard’s lips twitch, but the worry lines remain creased in his face.

“Was that the monster you spoke of? You?” Geralt asks.

Jaskier flinches.

“The one I was meant to kill? Is this place where we were meant to go all along?”

Geralt watches as Jaskier’s throat bobs with a swallow. “Geralt. I...I don’t know how far it will go.”

“What do you mean?”

Jaskier sits. “I’m… I don’t know how like my father I am.”

Geralt props himself on his elbows. “What are you?”

“I never had a word for it. My father - he might have been the last, before me. And now I am the last. At least, I have never heard of nor met another like me.” 

“And you’ve always known, and never said anything?” Geralt had always thought Jaskier had been born to noble folk, though he’d never asked. Neither of them talked about their pasts much. 

Jaskier hugs his knees to him. “I’ve always been human. My mother was human. I thought maybe...maybe it would never happen to me. But my father said that when I came of the age of maturity...it would happen. And that I might suffer terrible appetites.”

Geralt raises his eyebrows. “Appetites?”

“My father ate people,” Jaskier says. He looks in the direction of the village. “Those people.” He looks around the walls surrounding them. “And probably some of these people.”

The skeletons with the large gnaw marks. “Do you want to eat people?”

Jaskier’s face twists. “I don’t think so.”

Geralt hums. “You grew up here?”

“I did,” he says. “When this castle was falling apart, but not yet abandoned.”

Geralt leans back. “How old are you?”

Jaskier smiles, but it’s sad. “Older than you think.”

His heart jumps. Just a little. “I wish you had told me.” 

Jaskier releases a sharp, thin bark. “And tell you to kill me preemptively?”

“You did when we embarked upon this journey.”

Jaskier’s head drops, his brown hair sweeping forward. “Yeah, well, I thought if I ever turned...you would be able to stop me. If I ever decided to...embrace my father’s appetites.”

 _And then I drove him away._ With such a burden he carried. 

“And then when I felt it...coming on…” Jaskier rocks and fidgets as he talks. “I knew I had to - beg you, to help me. Someone. I didn’t - I didn’t want to be a monster. I just wanted - I just wanted to be me. Be that guy. The troubadour and the guy everyone wants at their parties. I wanted to be known for my song rather than as the guy who turned into a monster and ate people.”

Geralt reaches over and takes Jaskier’s hand. “I’m still here. Do you want to eat me?”

Jaskier snorts and a smile reaches his lips, a real one. “In a way, yes, but not in a way that kills or maims you.”

Geralt chuckles. “I’m glad to hear it.”

“It helps, actually,” Jaskier says. His cheeks color. “The sex, I mean. Having you close. It’s the first bit of relief I’ve had for a while. It’s like...I’ve been aching for something. Something with skin. Not - not to eat. Just to be close to. And...I feel quenched.”

Geralt looks away, not wanting Jaskier to peer at him too closely. If Jaskier’s using him for relief, that’s fine. He doesn’t need Jaskier to guess that Geralt would take more. And though he can hide his emotions well, he doesn’t want to slip up during this conversation. “I didn’t think you slept with men.”

Jaskier huffs. “Well, not since I’ve met you, anyway.”

Geralt swivels to face him. “Why?”

Jaskier shrugs and licks his lips. “I guess...you were with women, and I could have women, and sometimes we could have them together. In a way, it was to be closer to you. Stupid, right?”

Geralt smiles. He’s been doing the same. “Yeah,” he says. “It is stupid.” 

Jaskier laughs. The sound calls to something inside Geralt. He wiggles closer to Jaskier. The bard doesn’t shrink away. 

“Does this mean...does this mean we’ve both harbored deeper feelings for one another?”

Jaskier glances at him sharply. “Does it? Because we’ve had a strange way of showing it.”

Geralt lowers his head. “Jaskier,” he says. “I said terrible things to you.” He presses. “I never should have said those things.”

“You were upset about losing her.”

“Yeah,” Geralt admits. “But to be fair, I didn’t know this - “ he gestures between them “ - was an option. I was angry about losing her, but I was also angry about more than that. About my feelings for you, about -” he lifts his head to the ceiling. “About a lot of things, actually. It doesn’t matter. After you left, I knew I had made the gravest mistake of my life. I’d chased away the one person I’d become friends with, and who I had grown to love.” 

He can feel the weight of Jaskier’s eyes on him. After a few moments of silence, Jaskier says, “Geralt, the feeling is mutual.”

Geralt doesn’t trust himself to speak, so he nods.

Jaskier moves to his knees beside Geralt, and takes his face into his hands. “Thank you,” he says. Geralt’s body thrills as Jaskier kisses him. Geralt pulls him into his lap and holds him close. He’s not usually affectionate with his lovers, but Jaskier has always managed to draw surprising urges from him. The room holds only the sound of their kisses, sweet and soft in the dawning light.

When they pause, Geralt presses his forehead to Jaskier’s. “So, what do we do now?”

“I’d like to stay here a little longer, until it passes,” Jaskier says.

“Passes?”

“My father preferred to live as this part of him, lurking in the water and frightening the people. Haunting the castle as if he were the Lord of Death.” Jaskier runs his fingers through Geralt’s hair. “But I want to live as a human, and I want us to go on adventures together, and I want to sing praises of your valiant efforts and your stoic bravery, and be a general thorn in your side.”

Geralt’s eyes sting and he looks away as something behind his ribs warms and melts. “I’d like that, too,” he says in a rough voice. Jaskier kisses his temple, and Geralt holds him tighter.

“So, this will happen periodically, and I’ll have to return here while it happens. It calls to me.” He brushes his nose across Geralt’s cheekbone. “If that’s alright with you.”

“Yes,” Geralt says, and his ribs seem to squeeze tighter around his heart. “Yes.”

When they leave the ruins on the seaside cliff, each of them is able to put old ghosts to rest: Jaskier, that he can be human and safe, and Geralt, that he can love and be loved. When on their journeys Jaskier’s appetite for _something_ ramps up, Geralt gives him relief in the form of gentle lovemaking or wild fucking. When Geralt’s feelings seep to the surface, Jaskier soothes him, and reaffirms their connection.

And throughout their long lives, the monster-hunter and his monster are content in their love. 


End file.
